Manor house Zemono, Vipava valley

In the northwest of Vipava, the village Zemono is located. Above it, on a 139 metre high rising, the Manor house Zemono (Belvedere) is located. The building, which is set among vineyards, can be seen for miles around.

It was built by Vipava lord Francesko Antonio Lanthieri in 1683. The year 1683 is carved into arcaded hall. Francesko was a great lover of art (a bit before Belvedere, he built a manor house in Vipava) and an even greater entrepreneur (among other things, he founded a paper factory and a spinning-mill in 1651, in Ajdovščina). A counts’ wine cellar first stood on the hill Belvedere. When a new building was added, they started using it as a summer and hunting mansion and Vipava’s manor house.

The building in the Palladian style, which is rarely found in Slovenia, was designed by an unknown, Italian architect. The late Renaissance mansion in Venetian style has a rectangular ground plan. The exterior is encircled with beautifully shaped stone arcades, above which the central part of the mansion, the ground plan of which is a Greek cross, rises. Almost all the rooms are decorated with significant, Baroque frescoes, depicting secular, allegorical (the elements fire, air and water are presented) and fantastic motifs.

In the renovated building, surrounded by a park and vineyards, there are a wedding hall and a restaurant (a former mansion kitchen) on the ground floor.

The frescoes that decorate the walls of the mansion are a rarity since they depict, unlike most of the frescoes, secular subjects.

As one of the rare, Vipava cultural monuments, Zemono is hospitably open to visitors. On the ground floor, there is a renovated main hall, which is all embellished with frescos. Concerts, exhibitions and weddings occasionally take place there.